


True Romance

by Blanquette



Series: Wild Days [3]
Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Beginnings, Colors, Fluff, Friendship/Love, M/M, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, Painting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-29 02:45:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12072975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blanquette/pseuds/Blanquette
Summary: Hyungwon watches the night. Minhyuk paints.





	True Romance

**Author's Note:**

> Light doesn't really work that way but oh well. Bear with me.  
> 

1.

“Shit, I didn’t bring enough red.”

Hyungwon looks up at Minhyuk, who’s staring at his piece with a frown on his face.

“Can’t you just… Use orange or something.”

Minhyuk looks at him, lips drawn in a taut line, his frown deepening.

“Nevermind.”

Hyungwon shrugs, and turns his sight on the city laid out before him. It looks like a perfect reflection of the night sky, looking at it from up high, artificial lights twinkling like so much stars. He’s sitting on the scaffolding behind a huge billboard atop a building. It would be difficult to go higher. Minhyuk is standing behind him, applying swaths of colors to the disturbing urban fresco he has been bringing to life for the past hour.

Hyungwon feels numb. That high, the wind is chilling. He buries his hands between his thighs, folds a bit more over himself.

“I think I’m done.”

Hyungwon cranes his neck to look behind him. Minhyuk covered everything in splashes of colors. There’s his name, in black calligraphy imitating paint brushes, in the middle.

“Your name?”

“Well, yeah.”

Minhyuk turns away from the painting and goes to sit beside Hyungwon. He looks up instead of down.

“What is the point?”

“What is the point of anything?”

Hyungwon makes a face, and Minhyuk laughs.

“It’s just. Everybody will see it up here. I’ll see it. It’s like, oh, that’s me. I exist in this world.”

 “Didn’t you know that already?”

Minhyuk bumps him with his shoulder, shrugs a little.

“You know what I mean.”

Hyungwon doesn’t. It’s hard to bypass Minhyuk’s existence. He’s too loud, too bright to miss. In your face, wherever you look. Hyungwon feels immensely bland next to him. Like one of the blank canvas thrown in the corner of Minhyuk’s room. He doesn’t know how to be painted.

 

2.

Hyungwon doesn’t fight back when they corner him. He knows it’s useless. Three against one. He puts his backpack down, braces himself for the hit. It’s not long to come. He’s hit in the sternum, the air painfully rushed out of him, and he doubles over with a groan, arms bracing his stomach. That’s when a knee comes up to meet him, and his teeth clatter when they smash together. He feels it resonate in his skull. He falls. It’s a matter of feet against ribs then, his arms bracing his head. It’s over soon. He hears them take off running behind his closed eyelids. He waits, just to be sure.

Nothing comes, so he gingerly sits up, wincing. He feels dizzy, stays crouched in the dust for some time.  They didn’t touch his backpack.

 

3.

His face takes on interesting patterns. Colors. Greens and blues and reds. His chest is a constellation of blues and yellows. He looks at himself in his body mirror, tall and lean. It hurts to the touch but he can’t help it, fingers grazing wounded ribs and a busted jaw.

Kihyun doesn’t seem to find it as interesting as he does. Anger clouds his face and his eyes darken, and he asks, _who?,_ in that cold voice that never bodes well. In those moments, Kihyun is a deep black next to Minhyuk’s sunny yellow.

So Hyungwon enumerates names, knowing full well they are going to drown in the black hole of Kihyun’s anger.

 

4.

Minhyuk pokes at the tiny bruise still slightly visible on his jaw.  

“Does it still hurt?”

Hyungwon shakes his head. The pain had faded away. The colors had washed off him. He was blank again, and Kihyun’s black was streaked with angry red. And something softer, too.

Hyungwon sighs, brings his knees to his chest. He’s suddenly acutely aware that each light below them belongs to someone.

 “Everyone’s falling in love.”

Minhyuk tilts his head to one side, eyes still locked on the night sky above them.

“Yeah, I guess. And they think they’re so sneaky about it.”

Minhyuk bumps Hyungwon’s knee with his, eyes settling back on him.

“But is that longing I hear?”

Hyungwon doesn’t answer. He follows the streaks of red tail lights far below them, trying to imagine where each might be going. He likes making up lives for strangers. Minhyuk chews the inside of his lips, and slips his legs in the space left below the railing, letting them dangle above the sheer drop to the roof of the building.

“Wanna fall in love with me? I’m cute. Single and ready to mingle.”

He’s looking at Hyungwon in a cutesy way, index dipping his left cheek.

“That’s not how it works,” Hyungwon says as he shoves him. Minhyuk makes a show of sprawling on his back, laughing. The metal scaffolding is cold under his back, and he shivers. But he doesn’t have to crane his neck to look at the sky like this, so he stays.

“Sorry, I can’t offer true romance.”

“What would that even be?”

“I don’t know.”

(Maybe it’s Changkyun stealing glances over steaming ramen, or Jooheon hurling himself into a fight to protect him. Maybe it’s Kihyun, trailing a bat behind him, unaware of the hypnotized eyes following him. Maybe it’s Minhyuk, painting his name on the back of a billboard to assert his own existence.)

“Hey, look.”

Hyungwon turns to Minhyuk, and then follows his pointing finger. There’s light beginning on the horizon.

“I can’t believe we spent the whole night freezing our asses off up here.”

Minhyuk hoists himself up on his elbows, watching as the sun rises. Hyungwon almost holds his breath as streaks of pink and yellow tear through the black of the waning night. They stay silent a long moment, and then Minhyuk is scooting closer to him again. He laughs.

“What?”

“You should see your face. It’s all warm-orange from the light.”

Minhyuk is bright, too, but then again, he always is. Hyungwon extends his arm in front of him, hiking up his hoodie’s sleeve to expose his skin. The morning light gives it a warm glow, and they both stare at it.

“It’s pretty.”

Hyungwon doesn’t know if Minhyuk is talking about him or the sun so he just nods, eyes not leaving his arm.

“You’re like a canvas.”

“What?”

“You know. Like the sky is painting you. Look, I’m being romantic here.”

“More like cheesy.”

Hyungwon lets his arm fall back at his side, spreading his fingers flat against the metal of the scaffolding. He’s out of the light.

“I don’t want to be blank.”

“Blank canvas are great, though. Full of possibilities. Once it’s painted, it’s over. I like the infinity of potentials.”

“I guess. I didn’t think of it that way.”

Minhyuk lays back down, closes his eyes. Lets tentative rays of sunshine wash over him. He’s smiling.

“It’s like you. You show up all black and yellow one day, and the next you’re glowing a warm orange. I like the changes. It feels like life. You’re the least blank person I know, you wear everything on your skin.”

“You’re being cheesy again.”

 “I know. I’m an artist, sue me.”

Hyungwon crosses his legs in front of him and reclines on his hands, a pensive look on his face. The tip of his fingers brushes Minhyuk’s behind him, and he doesn’t move them, even when the latter starts to play, stretching his fingers or linking them together.  

Maybe Minhyuk is right. Maybe he’s okay. Behind them, the painting takes on new colors, and he turns around to see it, keeping Minhyuk’s hand in his.

“Could you add my name?”

“What?”

“I wanna know I exist, too.”

Minhyuk smiles, stretches and sits up, cross-legged. His eyes are bright.

“I’ll do you one better.”

 

5.

Minhyuk’s next piece is under a bridge over the river, on a pillar that has its feet in the water. It’s a portrait. There’s no outline, just a myriad of color strokes that somehow melt into a face. If you look at its reflection in the water, it blends and shapes itself in infinite possibilities.

 

 

 

 


End file.
